UK heart patients forced to wait one year for heart treatment
3 Min Read
The British Heart Foundation claims that pressure on the NHS is one of several factors contributing to premature deaths caused by heart conditions.
-
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visits St George's hospital in London, Thursday March 16, 2023. (AP)
The UK's NHS has released figures that show 15 hospital trusts across the country have more than 200 patients each waiting longer than a year for heart procedures, while the British Heart Foundation (BHF) warns that waiting lists for heart care are at a record high, reaching 414,596 at the end of March 2024 -double their number in 2020.
Associate medical director at the BHF, Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, said, “I find it profoundly disturbing that record-breaking numbers of heart patients are on the waiting list and that they are waiting longer than ever.”
“This bucks the trend of overall waiting lists falling when we know that heart care can’t wait. Not getting the right heart test, treatment, or surgery at the right time could lead to an avoidable heart attack, incurable heart failure, or someone dying prematurely,” she added.
Back in January, BHF numbers showed that those dying in England before age 75 from heart and circulatory diseases had risen to their highest level in a decade. In 2022 more than 39,000 died in England prematurely of cardiovascular conditions which is an average of 750 people a week. The annual total of deaths was at the highest since 2008.
Read next: NHS' 7.2-million waiting list leaves patients 'helpless, forgotten'
Broken promises
The BHF claims that NHS pressure is one of several factors contributing to premature deaths caused by heart conditions, stressing that the health sector has to better the prevention of heart disease and stroke, prioritize NHS heart care, and the “supercharging” of cardiovascular research.
An NHS England spokesperson responded, “NHS staff have made significant progress in bringing down the longest waits for care that built up during the pandemic. Waits of over 65 weeks for cardiology treatment have fallen by 40% since March 2023.”
A spokesperson for University Hospitals Sussex also said on its part: “We are one of the largest trusts in the country and run cardiology services from all four of our main hospital sites. Over the last year, colleagues have been working incredibly hard to deliver extra clinics, maximise the use of community diagnostic centres and improve processes, which has helped cut our waiting lists by almost 20%.”
West Hertfordshire teaching hospitals NHS trust said rapid access teams saw cardiology patients with urgent assessment, but non-urgent cases faced waits. One of its spokespersons said: “There was a 16% increase in the last year in GP referrals for routine cardiology appointments, and demand has exceeded capacity for these cases. We have put in place a number of measures to further improve the service.”
Nearly 14,000 individuals died needlessly in England last year while awaiting treatment in A&E departments for up to 12 hours, according to a recent estimate.
According to calculations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), derived from a comprehensive study of excess deaths and waiting times, it is estimated that approximately 268 individuals per week likely died in 2023 due to long waits in emergency departments.
Read more: Ambulance delays force Britons to get to hospitals on their own
